What Makes Life Meaningful?

Summary

In this episode of the Word on Fire Show, host Brandon Vaught discusses the profound topic of meaning with Bishop Robert Barron. They explore the concept of 'Summum Bonum' or the supreme good, emphasizing the importance of aligning one's life with objective values. The conversation delves into the contemporary crisis of meaning, suggesting that true happiness and fulfillment lie in recognizing and pursuing these higher values rather than seeking them within oneself. The discussion also touches on the role of family as a fundamental source of meaning and the idea that even the most evil actions are motivated by a perceived good, reflecting on the nature of the human will and its inherent orientation towards the good.

Takeaways

• 📚 The Word on Fire Show with Brandon Vaught discusses life's meaning with Bishop Robert Barron, emphasizing the pursuit of the 'summum bonum' or supreme good beyond material values.
• 🎓 Bishop Barron highlights the importance of education in recognizing and pursuing objective values, such as beauty, truth, and goodness, which contribute to a meaningful life.
• 🎙️ The 'Four Horsemen of Meaning' discussion on Jordan Peterson's podcast involved deep dialogue on meaning, consciousness, and the symbolic tradition, attracting significant viewership despite its length.
• 👨‍🏫 Bishop Barron's definition of meaning is being in a purposive relationship to a value, suggesting that a religiously meaningful life is one that is directed towards the highest good, which he identifies as God.
• 🌐 The conversation touches on the current 'meaning crisis', suggesting that the lack of connection to a transcendent good is a source of widespread depression, anxiety, and a sense of aimlessness.
• 👨‍👧‍👦 The bishop, as a father, critiques children's movies that often depict meaning as something found within oneself, arguing instead that true meaning is discovered through objective values and relationships.
• 📊 Lifeway Research and Pew Research Center polls indicate that a majority of people believe in an ultimate purpose for life and that family is a top source of meaning, reflecting a yearning for connection to something greater.
• 🤔 Bishop Barron challenges the notion that people commit evil for the sake of evil, arguing from a Thomistic perspective that all acts of the will are seeking what appears to be good, even if misguided.
• 💡 The bishop offers advice for those struggling to find meaning, suggesting acts of love and appreciation for the beauty in the world as ways to break out of self-preoccupation and connect with objective reality.
• 🌟 The discussion underscores the idea that true happiness and meaning come from aligning oneself with objective values and the supreme good, rather than from subjective desires or self-invention.
• 📚 The Word on Fire Institute offers resources like the 'Evangelization and Culture Journal' to explore topics like freedom, providing a platform for intellectual and spiritual growth.

Q & A

What is the main topic of discussion in the 'Word on Fire' show with Bishop Robert Barron?

The main topic of discussion is the meaning of life and how to find it, with a focus on the concept of 'sumo bonum' or the supreme value beyond the objective goods found in the world.

What is the 'Evangelization and Culture Journal'?

The 'Evangelization and Culture Journal' is a quarterly publication for members of the Word on Fire Institute, which includes articles, interviews, and other content on various topics related to faith and culture.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to the Meaning of Life Discussion

The transcript begins with an introduction to the 'Word on Fire' show, hosted by Brandon Vaught, who is joined by Bishop Robert Barron. They aim to discuss the fundamental question of the meaning of life. Bishop Barron is introduced as a guest who has recently participated in a thought-provoking discussion on Jordan Peterson's podcast, titled 'The Four Horsemen of Meaning,' which has garnered significant attention. The show also promotes their quarterly journal, 'Evangelization and Culture,' and encourages viewers to become members of the Word on Fire Institute for access to the journal and other benefits.

05:02

🎵 The Pursuit of Supreme Value and the Crisis of Meaning

In this paragraph, Bishop Barron delves into the concept of meaning, drawing from his participation in the podcast with Jordan Peterson and others. He emphasizes that while people often find meaning in objective goods, the ultimate goal is to guide them towards the 'sumo bonum' or supreme value. He discusses the idea that a meaningful life involves a purposive relationship with values and the supreme good, which he identifies as God. The Bishop also touches on the current 'meaning crisis' characterized by high suicide rates and addiction, attributing this to a departure from the belief in a transcendent good and the mistaken belief that individuals can generate their own values.

10:03

🌟 Discovering Meaning Through External Values

Bishop Barron continues the conversation by discussing the objective nature of values and how they exist independently of individuals. He argues against the idea that meaning comes from within, suggesting instead that true happiness and meaning are found by aligning oneself with these objective values. He uses examples from art, morality, and intellect to illustrate how values can impact and transform individuals. The Bishop also addresses the misconception that meaning is a personal creation, stressing that it is, in fact, an external discovery that leads to a fulfilling life.

15:03

🔍 The Role of Family and Ultimate Purpose in Life

The discussion shifts to recent polls and surveys that explore people's perceptions of meaning in life. The Lifeway Research Group found that a majority of Americans believe in an ultimate purpose for their lives, despite the decline in religious beliefs. The Pew Research Center's global poll revealed that family is the top source of meaning across all countries. Bishop Barron reflects on these findings, suggesting that while people recognize the importance of family and other values, the ultimate purpose may be tied to a higher, transcendent good.

20:04

🤔 Addressing the Struggle for Meaning and the Role of Love

In the closing part of the transcript, Bishop Barron offers advice to those struggling to find meaning in life. He suggests performing acts of love for others as a way to break out of self-preoccupation and connect with a higher value. He also recommends finding and appreciating beauty in the world as a means to discover meaning. The Bishop emphasizes the importance of looking beyond oneself and engaging with the world to find genuine purpose and happiness.

25:05

💬 The Debate on the Nature of Evil and the Human Will

The final paragraph addresses a listener's question regarding a previous discussion between Bishop Barron and Jordan Peterson about the nature of evil. Bishop Barron explains his perspective, rooted in the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, that all acts of the will are directed towards what appears to be good, even if the objective outcome is evil. He argues that the will is inherently structured to seek the good, and even in the most morally corrupt actions, there is a trace of the divine in the will's very nature to pursue the good, offering a glimmer of hope even in the darkest of situations.

Keywords

💡Sumo Bonum

The term 'Sumo Bonum' is a Latin phrase meaning 'supreme good' or 'highest good.' In the context of the video, it represents the ultimate value or purpose that gives meaning to life, transcending other great values discovered in the world. The speaker, Bishop Robert Barron, uses the concept to illustrate that a religiously meaningful life is one that is in a purposeful relationship with this supreme value, which is often referred to as God in religious contexts.

💡Meaning of Life

The 'Meaning of Life' is a philosophical question that...

Highlights

The Word on Fire Show discusses the meaning of life with Bishop Robert Barron, emphasizing the pursuit of the 'summum bonum' or supreme good.

Bishop Barron's definition of meaning: being in a purposive relationship to a value, especially the supreme value in a religiously meaningful life.

The new issue of the Evangelization and Culture Journal focuses on the topic of freedom, featuring contributions from various authors.

The 'Four Horsemen of Meaning' discussion on Jordan Peterson's podcast explores the concept of meaning with four prominent thinkers.

Bishop Barron's view that meaning is found in objective values that exist in the world, rather than being subjectively created.

The crisis of meaning in modern society, linked to high rates of suicide, depression, and addiction.

The importance of recognizing objective moral values and their impact on our lives, as opposed to generating values internally.

The role of education in helping individuals discern and pursue higher expressions of value.

The concept that a meaningful life involves aligning oneself with the highest good, which is identified as God in religious terms.

LifeWay Research poll reveals that 81% of Americans believe in an ultimate purpose and plan for every person's life.

Pew Research Center's global survey shows family as the top source of meaning across all countries.

Bishop Barron's advice for those struggling to find meaning: perform an act of love for the good of another.

The suggestion to find and appreciate objective beauty or goodness in the world as a means to discover meaning.

The disagreement between Bishop Barron and Jordan Peterson on whether evil can be committed for its own sake.

Bishop Barron's perspective on the will always seeking the good, even in the actions of those who commit evil.

The hopeful message that even in the most morally desperate situations, there is a trace of divinity in the human will.

Transcripts

people find real values objective goods

in the world

but our job is now to lead them to the

sumo bonum that's beyond even these

great values they discover

welcome back to the word on fire show i

am brandon vaught the senior publishing

director at word on fire what is the

meaning of it all what's the meaning of

life how do we find it that's what we're

going to be discussing today with bishop

robert baron who joins us in studio

bishop good to see you hey brandon

always good to be with you

we got a new issue of the evangelization

and culture journal which just came out

this of course is our quarterly journal

for members of the word on fire

institute if you're not yet a member

now's a good time to sign up you can get

a free copy of this journal but the new

edition is on the topic of freedom i

know you've had a chance to check it out

bishop maybe say a few words about it

yeah it's fantastic you know chapeau to

um todd warner our great editor who does

a marvelous job in the design team uh

it's just a beautiful

magazine to hold in your hands and to

look at and it's filled with good stuff

um i just finished the interview with

bobby mixo who's been with us for a long

time and uh robert george himself has a

good article there about um

is he's the one conflating two things

with the newman and john stewart mill i

think that was robert george's article

uh elizabeth scalia's got a piece in

there i've got an interview about

my book on the creed so all kinds of

great stuff in that

pick up your copy at

wordonfire.institute when you sign up

you'll get a copy of that journal a free

book lots of other stuff including some

great courses inside of our institute

okay let us turn to the topic of meaning

i want to get right into this because

this is a long and loaded topic here

maybe we could begin with a recent

discussion you had with three other

gentlemen on jordan peterson's podcast

so the group included jordan peterson

yourself jonathan pagio and john

verveiki

the title of this video which you can

find on youtube was the four horsemen of

meaning i want to come back to that in a

second the discussion lasted over two

hours it already has over 500 000 views

um maybe first tell us

how did this come about what are the

four horsemen of meaning what does that

allude to and what were your initial

impressions of the discussion

yeah i think it came out of the

conversation i had with jordan peterson

now almost a year ago so he and i did a

i think over two hour conversation and

we hit on some of those same topics and

then jonathan pajot who's the wonderful

icon writer and i like a

sculptor of icons and a guy that's very

wise in regards to the symbolic

tradition and then verveiki is a fellow

i didn't know him that well but he's a

psychology professor at the university

of toronto and looking into the question

of consciousness and how that relates to

meaning so i think it was peterson's you

know camp kind of reached out to me and

said would you be willing to sit down

with the three of them and talk about

this whole question and how it's um

you know intriguing a lot of younger

people today so i said yeah i'd love to

so i think i did i think i was down at

the cathedral in l.a and we hooked up

the cameras and lights and and i

broadcast from there and it as you say

went on for well over two hours

and it's something i kind of like now uh

you know i worried about the short

attention span of a lot of millennials

and youngers you know given

given the social media but uh now it

seems like a lot of people are get are

very interested in these long-form

podcasts think of you know joe rogan is

on for three hours with people and

peterson too typically goes two hours

and we were talking at a pretty high

level too it's not like just a real

user-friendly

mode of discourse but that's how it came

about and

the four horsemen thing of course goes

right back to the book of revelation but

that was picked up by the new atheists

right the four horsemen of

atheism they call themselves i guess the

hitchens dawkins harris and dennett

right so i think they're now playing on

that that we're

i guess the four horsemen riding in the

other direction you know the direction

of meaning

at the very beginning of the discussion

jordan

began by asking each one of the other

three guests how they would define

meaning and here was your definition you

said meaning is to be in a purposive

relationship to a value

and then you added to be to live a

religiously meaningful life is to be in

purpose of relationship to the sunum

bonum or the supreme value

say more about that what do you mean by

that definition of meaning i was trying

to make it as simple as possible um

and i was using dietrich von hildebrand

there whom i rely on a lot in these

matters that uh

these basic values appear and they

shouldn't be analyzed um

uh to dust what i mean is they they

appear

they're there in the world

best to say aesthetic values beautiful

things when you hear beethoven's seventh

symphony you'd say yeah that's

beautiful

uh moral values appear

so the the

the uh

act of maximilian kolbe at the end of

his life you know surrendering himself

to save this other man

yeah that's just good that that's

morally good intellectual values appear

you read plato's symposium and you say

yeah that's true he's speaking a great

truth there well these things appear and

a good education our friend c.s lewis i

think would agree with this is teaching

people how to recognize those values so

they they are intrigued by the right

things that their their wills and their

passions are engaged by the right things

so i'm saying here that um a meaningful

life

is in a purposive relationship to a

value you not only appreciate the value

but now you're ordering your life toward

it you're saying my life is about

appreciating uh

that value and maybe even trying to

imitate that value so that that i can

try to do something at least akin to

what plato did something akin to what

maximilian kolbe did uh something akin

to beethoven even i don't have the the

gifts of all these people i'm in a

purposive relationship to the value that

i've discerned

i think that's what makes your life

meaningful

and then the next step well what's the

supreme value so i just named a

handful of values right and all sorts of

moral values at different levels of

importance we say to a little kid like

no no don't don't take that you know

glass of water away from your sister

well you're inculcating you're you're

awakening them to a moral value

then there's maximum kobe that you know

a moral value at the highest possible

level

same with aesthetic values

teach a little kid like yeah look at you

can you know you can draw a bird by

doing this and oh yeah that's that's

beautiful and then there's you know

there's michelangelo

so

to be in a purpose of relationship to

the highest value the sumo bonum the

supreme good

that's now to be in a religiously

meaningful life

much of the purpose of education and

formation is to move people into this

realm of objective value but not just

into it but to move into it in a

hierarchically ordered way where you

lead people to higher and higher

expressions of value and then finally we

talked about jacob's ladder last time

what goes to the very highest truth and

goodness and beauty

we name that god right and a religiously

meaningful life is one that is

purposively related to that good

there's lots of talk today about the

meaning crisis that we're suffering a

crisis of meaning and people point to

all sorts of indicators such as record

high suicide rates and opioid opioid

addictions and depression rates

addictions

do you sense that as well do you think

we're we're suffering a unique crisis of

meaning today

yeah and i'd be i think in line here

with charles taylor and other uh

philosophers

who would say look up until the

really let's say maybe late 19th early

20th century most people in most

civilizations in human history would say

you can't really be happy

outside of a relationship with a

transcendent good

so let's name it as broadly as we can

some transcendent good

without a relationship to god i can't

really be happy i can't really be

satisfied it's only in relatively recent

years in the west

that people have begun to say

no i can be

happy satisfied without that

relationship

bottom line is you can't and that's

where a lot of the

meaninglessness depression anxiety

uh sense of drift is coming from

the other thing i'd say brandon is

if the realm of value is objective

it's outside of us

it impresses itself upon us

so

go back to beethoven seventh symphony is

it's not because it pleases me that's

such a

crude superficial way of talking about

it

it

it changes me is better it

it controls me

it takes possession of me

maximilian kolbe's act is not one that i

say oh yeah that's you know i that that

pleases me to see that oh come on

probably it doesn't please me by the way

it frightens me if anything

but

it's massively valuable

and i recognize it as such

if you say as many people do today

that oh no value all comes from inside

of me as a matter of my own choice is i

generate value

that's never going to make you happy on

the contrary

if you say oh yeah it's it's whatever

you know goes along with my private

desires my superficial

tastes well i'm not going to be happy

i'm happy when the good

knocks me down and rearranges me and

chooses me and and calls me and summons

me to become an evangelist for it say

i'm using baltzar's language here you

know when you've you see a great play or

a great film or you hear a marvelous

symphony or you meet a great saintly

person and you say

wow

i never thought that was possible that's

he or it has has rearranged my thinking

and now i want the whole world to know

about this

i didn't know this was possible so i

invented it give me a break you didn't

think it was impossible but it it

grabbed you it rearranged you and then

sent you on mission see now we're

talking now we're talking all the great

heroes of the bible by the way they're

not

self inventors you know

uh boy i you know i'm gonna generate my

own meaning i mean the bible is utterly

uninterested in that

they're interested in those people who

are knocked to the ground

and rearranged and heard they heard

a voice a higher voice

you know don't don't literalize that as

they're hearing you know a physical

voice come out of the cloud it's a

symbol for this attunement to

the supreme value that is now calling

out to me right see now we're talking

now we're into the realm

of real value and that's going to make

us happy

you know as a father of seven young kids

and an eighth on the way i think i told

you that that uh we were pregnant with

our eighth child did you watch a lot of

i lose track well congratulations i

don't think i knew that thank you no

thank you we were just joking on that

note the other day oh my goodness

you know word on fire's got um almost 60

employees and i think we have six or

seven word on fire babies gestating

i'm not sure that there's ever going to

be a year where we don't have a ward on

fire baby in the next several decades

god willing you know i was gonna say

that would have been a perfect moment

for a spit take you know in the old

vaudeville because i was drinking and

the eight's on the way

you know

[Laughter]

i should have done it

with that was yeah as a father of all

these kids you know we watch a ton of

kids movies and

i say one of the things that really bugs

me you ask my wife kathleen is how so

many of these movies follow the same

pattern of

meaning crisis

but then look within to discover true

meaning and it's not it's not even

self-invention the way you're describing

these characters recognize

meaning is something i discover not

something i create but the place to

discover it is within follow your

feelings listen to your heart look in

discover who you are find yourself

and i think like like with you it leads

to a dead end it's the exact opposite

direction you should be going that

meaning as you're saying is found

outward either among us or beyond us

there's there's some objective values we

need to latch on to and align our lives

to to find objective meaning

right i mean look at

we're such unreliable guides you know i

i'm such a sinner and i'm i'm so mixed

up about so many things and so lost that

i'm going to look inside me and my my

mind and my little desires to find

meaning i mean give me a break i i'd be

a wreck

when paul says you're right feed as

auditor

faith comes from hearing

it doesn't come from it doesn't welling

up from inside of me it comes from

hearing i've heard a word right

uh abram heard the voice of god and and

followed

um

the objectivity of the good the the

great iris murdoch the irish philosopher

is so good on that she was a platonist

and uh

brought plato in some ways up to date

for the 20th century but one of her

essays she talks about when someone's

depressed and they're and they're just

they're full of anxiety and they're

worried

she said open the window

and her her example is i think it's a

kestrel it's a type of bird it's a like

a type of falcon i think i didn't even

recognize but she said open the window

and you see the kestrel you see the bird

this gorgeous beautiful bird and you

start looking at it and she said

within like a minute

all of your anxieties fall away

and all of your preoccupation falls away

and your depression falls away and she

said before you know it you're all

kestrel and her point was

you're

so absorbed in the objective goodness of

this thing

it's begun to rearrange you and remake

you

um

that's the way it is with the good in

the platonic tradition and a lot of our

great people are platonus in that sense

the recognition i call them values

following von hildebrand the same idea

these goods these basic goods

and they will lead you to god if you let

them

but if we keep preoccupying ourselves

with ourselves we're not going to get

anywhere we're going to get stuck

let's shift now to a couple of polls a

couple of surveys dealing with the

question of meaning that have recently

come out kind of very timely in light of

your jordan peterson discussion the

first one came from the lifeway research

group and

a lot of the stuff they discovered was

stuff we would probably expect that

people think meaning in god and

relationships and family and things like

that but here's one interesting

thing i found in the poll

lifeway discovered that four out of

every five americans 81

believe that quote there is an ultimate

purpose and plan for every person's life

81 of people believe there's an ultimate

purpose and plan for every person's life

now to me that was surprising in light

of the statistics we've covered in the

past about how much religion is

dwindling in the culture i find it

interesting that so many people believe

an ultimate plan

but not a planner or an arranger an

agent of of this plan how do you but you

can't have it both ways right you can't

have it because if you say well i'm

making up my own plan well that's one

thing but they're not talking about that

they're saying there's something as it

were out there there's something already

there that's that's the purpose of my

life

it's like louis's thing right about uh

everyone finds this same letter in their

mailbox namely like the doll right the

sense of moral

rectitude and moral responsibility no

matter what the culture is he said is it

odd that every single person in the

world finds the same letter in their

mailbox is it likely that the wind just

happened to blow

the same letter into every single

mailbox in the world well no it's

completely impossible

and so the this moral law within us

where's that come from

it's like the intelligibility of nature

where's that come from that the the

world is is legible so that scientists

can do their work why are we morally

legible that we can

we can or the world is morally legible

and we can adjust ourselves to it

um

we're not

coming up with the plan we discover it

out there so to speak

well that's true then there has to be

something like a planner or someone that

provides the purpose

now go back to aquinas so much of his

anthropology is predicated upon this

idea

of final causality

purpose

purpose how come i do what i do so this

morning i woke up and i got out of bed

and i brushed my teeth and i said my

prayers and i put my uh suit on and i

came in here so i was operating in a

purposive way right i'm doing all kinds

of things to attain certain goods and

values

but why am i ultimately doing all of it

so i get out of bed brush my teeth get

dressed come in here do this do that

why ultimately am i doing it

there's got to be some

finely supreme and unsurpassable good

that i'm at least in coetly seeking so

now look i'm a bishop of the church so

i'm kind of aware

god is the supreme good but i mean

someone who's a total non-believer

nevertheless nevertheless there is some

first cause of the will

there has to be there's some supreme

good that you are at least implicitly

seeking

that's the good

that will give meaning to your life if

you fully surrender to its

purposes for you you know now that's a

biblical view of life and uh that people

still kind of acknowledge it at least

implicitly that's not bad that means

there's still something of the biblical

uh imagination at work

a second recent poll came from the pew

research center this one was completed

earlier this year they asked 19 000

adults about the question of meaning all

across the world

and what was uh

perhaps unsurprising is that in every

single country without variation

the top source of meaning was family

family why why do you think family is so

closely tied to meaning because it's a

it's a great good so do my little um i

call it the russian dial analysis you

know the little russian dolls that nest

in each other so i i say for now typical

person uh i woke up

i brushed my teeth i i got dressed i got

in the car i went to work well how come

well because i want to make money why do

you want money because i want to support

my family well why do you want to

support your family because my family is

a great good and their flourishing is

important to me see you've reached there

i got eight russian dolls right that

i've i've situated a very particular act

of the will like getting out of bed in

the morning and i've come by eight steps

to

a really basic fundamental value that my

family is their flourishing is a great

good terrific you found one you found

one of the most

basic

goods that there are

now

read the bible

is family the ultimate good

and the bible says it in many ways

doesn't it like abraham

you know your son isaac whom you love

i want you to sacrifice him to me

god being cruel no no that's the wrong

way to read it as we said many times

it's the bible's way of signaling

there's a higher value than even the

value of family or let's say someone

else is motivated because they love

their country

terrific you found a great value you're

a patriot loving your country is a good

thing because the country is a high

value

highest value

no no

because if god is calling you to

something that that goes against the

desire of your of your country you've

got to follow god right

so my point there is

those polls represent something very

real people find real values objective

goods in the world

but our job is now to lead them to the

sumo

that's beyond even these great values

they discover

let's close with this final question i

know we likely have listeners to this

show that are struggling with this in

their life right now they're they're

struggling to find meaning or purpose in

their life um or maybe it's the son or a

daughter of one of our listeners or a

friend a loved one who's drifting in

nihilism and lost without purpose

as a pastor now

what what do you say to someone in this

situation someone who comes to you and

says

i don't have any meaning and i don't

think my life is worth living

you know i do i get that question a lot

uh

my user response is to say something

like

perform today

the simplest act of love

will the good of of another

and i'll leave it up to the i don't know

the person's life well enough to know

what that would be but

will the good of another

because that's one of the most important

steps out of the self-preoccupation

that's making you so unhappy

and it's ordering you toward a value

you've identified someone as a great

value and now you want to serve that

person by an act of love

that's a marvelous way

to break out of the of the prison of the

self another one would be along those

iris murder clients is find

something beautiful

something good like that maybe it is

it's a bird you see out out the window

look at it

look at it just spend some time

study it analyze it

i think that line breathed like this as

a philosopher it was

jacques maritan so there's there's more

reality in a seed between my teeth

than in all of hegelian idealism

what he meant there was

a seed between my teeth

it's real it's real it's the simplest

stupidest thing but it by god it's real

and and it's good in to that degree

because being in good are convertible

terms it's good there's more reality in

a little

bug crawling on the ground look look at

it study it

it gets you out of yourself you know

so that's my advice is perform an act of

love

or look out the window or on the ground

or even between your teeth to find

something that's just real

and lose yourself in that

that's an important first step

well it's time now for our listener

question if you have a question that

you'd like to ask bishop barron visit

the website askbishopbarren.com

you can record your question there on

any device today we're hearing from jake

he lives in the philippines he's asking

about your original discussion with

jordan peterson not this four horsemen

of meaning one but a previous one where

the two of you were discussing evil and

good uh here's this

hi bishop question

i'm jig from the philippines i watched

an episode of jordan peterson's podcast

where you and him had a disagreement on

what motivated people to commit great

evils you said that even the most evil

action is ultimately motivated by the

desire for something good jordan

peterson disagreed and said

that there are people who commit evil

just for the sake of evil can you

explain further your argument can it be

reconciled with jordan peterson's view

thank you bishop

yeah good thank you for that um

i'm sure those who know little aquinas

will know that i was operating simply

out of a thomas aquinas perspective uh

the great aquinas says that

that that every act of the will

is seeking at least the apparent good

it's just the way the will is structured

right the the good is what's desirable

the will seeks the good that's its

nature

now

objectively speaking

can a wicked person be seeking a wicked

end yeah it happens all the time

and so that's why i don't deny for a

second that there really are wicked

people who are seeking very bad

objectively bad things

but

at least to them

it was apparently good or else they

wouldn't have willed it you can't will

something unless there's something at

least apparently good in it

adolf hitler was willing what appeared

good to him in under some aspect

a person who commits suicide

is willing

to him the apparent good of his

non-existence right

so in a way it's to me it's not really a

controversial idea it's just sort of a

commonsensical more logical observation

that the way the will is structured it's

always seeking at least something that

it thinks is good

but can it be mistaken of course

and can wicked people choose wicked

things yeah absolutely that's what makes

them wicked

but

here's the i think lovely side of that

idea is that even there

hitler the the worst people

is there something of god still there

yes because god created the will to seek

the good and even it's being done

perversely it's being done with with

deep you know confusion and inadequacy

still there's something of god in it

there's something of of that trace of

divinity in the very way the will is

structured so i guess there i'd say okay

i'd be willing to see

at least a glimmer of hope

even in the most you know desperate

moral situation

well thanks for that question jake and

thanks to all of you for listening to

this episode one more reminder to pick

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